People don’t really talk about podcasts, and I wonder if they listen to them at all. Obviously, some people do, but I think it’s possible to just go on without really paying attention to their presence - while it’s nearly impossible to get away from film, or music, or even video games, podcasts are only really noticeable if you turn your attention towards them.

Here are a few I listen to that I think are good (and other people think are good too). They’re all on iTunes and in a ton of podcast directories, and most serve as a decent introduction to the form. I think. Feel free to ignore all of this if you’re certain it’s not for you (or, of course, if you already subscribe to hundreds of them).

• This American Life: most people have a rough understanding of this one (it’s consistently the number one-ranked podcast in the US, and has more than a million listeners), but for newcomers the premise is pretty simple: each week, host Ira Glass and his team choose a theme, and scour the country (and sometimes the world) for stories, events and news pieces on that theme. Recent additions have been animal sacrifice, doppelgängers (co-hosted by SNL regular Fred Armisen doing an uncanny Ira Glass impression), and some of the oddest Christmas stories you were likely to encounter all year. It’s a fantastic weekly staple, and to leave it out of any podcast library feels a little strange.
• Snap Judgment: it’d be too easy to call this a version of This American Life with a musical backing track, but at its core it sticks to a similar philosophy. The host, Glynn Washington, couldn’t be different, though - he’s smooth, has a predilection for being a little ridiculous, and the show zeroes in a little more on personal stories than zoomed-out surveys of phenomena. That said, it’s excellent, and at its best when the stories have an uplifting bent. A good one to start with is the recent live recording at the Harman Center in Washington DC.
• The Moth: Usually a lot shorter than the two above, The Moth podcasts are usually two or three stories told live, without notes, at any of The Moth’s shows around the country. This makes me laugh and cry every week, and sometimes gasp. The idea of someone baring their soul on-stage doesn’t even begin to match up to the reality of it.
• The Truth: A similar length to The Moth, but with this one it’s actual stories - that is, fiction, tightly packaged and presented. There’s a radio-drama feel to it, given that they invest a lot of time in sound production, and their stories tend to err on the creepy side. That said, it delivers a punch that audiobooks don’t quite manage.
• The Empire Film Podcast: possibly the only conventional one in the list, the UK-based Empire magazine deliver a weekly podcast that’s surprisingly informative, wonderfully indulgent to film geeks, and often outrageously funny. Obviously irrelevant if you don’t even have a passing interest in film, but more than worth checking out if you do.
• Professor Blastoff: I (and a few hundred thousand others, no doubt) started listening to this after buying co-host Tig Notaro’s excellent stand-up set Live last year, and it’s essentially Notaro, Kyle Dunnigan and a couple of others picking a theme and riffing off it for an hour or so. It’s more of an acquired taste (and not for the sort of people who need everything to have a clearly-defined point), but it’s possibly the funniest podcast on this list.